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Throwback Thursday: Paging Dr. B

As a soon-to-be mom, you want everything dealing with your pregnancy and your baby to go on without a hitch. No health complications in baby or mom, no excessive weight gain other than belly and boobs, baby arrives on scheduled due date, and if possible, no stretch marks.

For all of these reasons, as soon as I found out I was pregnant I began researching obstetricians. I found out I was pregnant with Aria on Saturday, August 7th (read that post here) and had it officially confirmed on the following Monday at Patient First. By Tuesday morning I was calling my new Doctor’s office to schedule an appointment. To my dismay, I could not be seen until September 21st .. something about not seeing the patient until they were at least eight weeks and yaddi, yaddi, yadda. That seemed like it was forever away! What was I supposed to do in the meantime? Twiddle my thumbs and let my mind wander? I think not. If you know me, you know too much time allotted for thinking can quite possibly lead to disaster.

I decided it would be best to give my mind some sort of sustenance so, to the bookstore we went. I aimlessly wandered around the pregnancy section with Mel dragging behind.

“Why do you need books when you have the internet? You’re not even going to read all of these,” Mel whined said. I simply replied, “Yes I am,” and continued browsing through the shelves. In my mind, I knew I wouldn’t read all of the books, but I would read some of the books. The others would be on the back burner for reference; meaning they would sit on the dresser and collect dust, but I would have them if I needed them. Was I going to admit he was right? Of course not.

Out of all of the books, I can honestly say the only one I read all the way through was Pregnancy Day by Day. I wouldn’t read ahead, I would only read the pages that corresponded with the day or week I was in. Let me just say, this book is the greatest pregnancy book ever. Plenty of illustrations, great information regarding pre-conception, conception, pregnancy, labor & delivery, post-labor, breastfeeding and much more. I LOVED THIS BOOK!! Even though I had the holy grail of pregnancy books, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, the spine of it was never cracked. I read the newsletters that were emailed to me daily from the What To Expect App and the forums within; all of this sufficed for reading the actual book. I now had all of this information at my disposal and it made the countdown to my first doctor’s appointment fly by.

Finally, the big day arrived. Mel picked me up from work to take me to the appointment. Another plus, my doctor’s office was only ten minutes away from my office building. But of course I wasn’t walking there in the heat of summer with this precious cargo on board, nope.

Dr. B was great. Very friendly with a bubbly personality — and also very pregnant. She was scheduled to give birth at the end of October or early November. Interesting. Soooooo, how was this going to work? When she goes on maternity leave, what doctor would I be seeing? I was told there were four doctor’s in the practice and eventually I would meet each one. It wasn’t a guarantee that my doctor would be the doctor delivering my baby. Not too sure how I felt about that one. I picked my doctor for a reason, not the other physicians in the practice. I liked Dr. B so much that I figured I would just cross that bridge when I got to it.

During the appointment I was given an exam and we were briefed on the ins and outs and do’s and don’ts of pregnancy. The best part of the appointment was the sonogram. For the first time, not only did we hear a soothing and relieving heartbeat, we laid eyes on the little life growing inside of me. At that moment everything seemed to stop, so powerful and surreal. Is this really happening? Mel and I looked at each other in amazement. Inside of me there is a living, breathing human being. We did this. Together we created this tiny, little person.

Aria as little peanut

To my surprise, I was actually twelve weeks along instead of ten weeks. Wowsers. Two weeks closer to seeing our baby. Two weeks closer to a new life.

I loved the fact that I was very comfortable with my doctor. I liked how I did not feel rushed during the appointment, she answered all of my questions and because she was pregnant too, that made her even easier to relate to. These are very important things to think about when choosing your doctor. If you feel like you can’t be open and comfortable during appointments, how will you feel during labor? Hopefully my first appointment was just a precursor of the weeks and months to come